In the past, short-term -- or brief -- treatment was practiced by few clinicians, its power relatively unknown. Today, the dual pressures of managed care and patient preference make it imperative to reconsider brief treatment, which has proven to be as effective as long-term therapy for many disorders and problems. This remarkable guide for conducting short-term psychotherapy details the tools and techniques of brief psychotherapy, addressing four main areas: Understanding, conceptualizing, and formulating the patient's problems -- Brief psychotherapy requires a concise formulation of the patient's problems within the first hours of treatment to ensure that the therapist understands and can focus on the patient's core problems early in therapy. The authors describe a detailed method of patient assessment and case formulation as the first building block in learning the fundamentals of short-term treatment. Setting realistic treatment goals -- Brief psychotherapy sets explicit goals from the beginning, based on a thorough evaluation that incorporates the patient's wishes, desires, and dissatisfactions and an agreement about what the work of therapy will encompass. Knowing what to say to patients (i.e., technique) -- Brief psychotherapy requires focused, concrete techniques within clear guidelines for each stage of treatment. With numerous clinical examples, the authors define a unified treatment that emphasizes the differential use of therapeutic interventions, such as cognitive-behavioral and interpersonal techniques, encompassing the continuum of interpretative to supportive approaches. They also offer an in-depth look into the therapeutic process: they use patient-therapist dialogues -- including both patient and therapist comments and accompanying third-voice explanations -- to chronicle the progress of four patients through the initial, middle, and termination phases of psychotherapy. Maintaining a positive therapeutic alliance -- Although the quality of the therapeutic alliance is the best predictor of outcome in both traditional and brief psychotherapy, it is absolutely vital to the success of brief psychotherapy. The authors present a framework for maintaining and enhancing this alliance, including how to heal misunderstandings. Concluding with a collaborative model and summary of the past 20 years' research on integrated treatment, this volume is more than a valuable clinical guide for integrated evaluation and treatment; it is also a practical blueprint for promoting and maintaining a flexible, positive patient/therapist relationship. As such, it will prove indispensable not only to practitioners, but also to educators and students.

Arguing that research shows that short-term treatments can be just as useful for many disorders and problems as long-term methodologies, the authors outline a system that incorporates cognitive-behavioral, interpersonal, and psychoanalytically derived expressive and supportive treatments. The system rests on four pillars of practice briefly summarized as consisting of the conceptualization and formulation of patients' problems, the setting of realistic treatment goals, the technique of knowing what to say to patients, and the maintenance of a positive therapeutic alliance. The authors also address the issue of medication and its integration with psychotherapy, and present research finding regarding combined treatment. c. Book News Inc.

Describes the clinical concepts and techniques of brief psychotherapy, using specific clinical examples to illustrate the point wherever possible.

This hands-on manual from Leigh McCullough and associates teaches the nuts and bolts of practicing short-term dynamic psychotherapy, the research-supported model first presented in Changing Character, McCullough's foundational text. Reflecting the ongoing evolution of the approach, the manual emphasizes "affect phobia," or conflict about feelings. It shows how such proven behavioral techniques as systemic desensitization can be applied effectively within a psychodynamic framework, and offers clear guidelines for when and how to intervene. Demonstrated are procedures for assessing patients, formulating core conflicts, and restructuring defenses, affects, and relationship to the self and others. In an easy-to-use, large-size format, the book features a wealth of case examples and write-in exercises for building key clinical skills. The companion website (www.affectphobiatherapy.com) offers useful supplemental resources, including Psychotherapy Assessment Checklist (PAC) forms and instructions.

The Massachusetts General Hospital is widely respected as one of the world's premier psychiatric institutions. Now, preeminent authorities from MGH present the newly updated edition of Massachusetts General Hospital Comprehensive Clinical Psychiatry, a unique medical reference book that continues to simplify your access to the current clinical knowledge you need - both in print and online! It provides practical approaches to a wide variety of clinical syndromes and settings, aided by stunning graphics and hundreds of questions and answers geared to each chapter. You'll have convenient access to all the authoritative answers necessary to overcome any clinical challenge. User-friendly, highly templated organization with abundant boxed summaries, bulleted points, case histories, algorithms, references, and suggested readings. Peerless, hands-on advice from members of the esteemed MGH Department of Psychiatry helps you put today's best approaches to work for your patients. Interactive and downloadable Q&As for each chapter allow you to test your retention of the material covered. In-depth coverage of many unique areas, including Psychiatric and Substance Use Disorders in Transitioning Adolescents and Young Adults; Neuroanatomical Systems Relevant to Neuropsychiatric Disorders; Legal and Ethical Issues in Psychiatry; Military Psychiatry; and Approaches to Collaborative Care and Primary Care Psychiatry. Features full, new DSM-5 criteria; new art, tables, and key points; and new Alzheimer's Disease guidelines. Highlights recent developments in the field, such as neurotherapeutics, new psychotropics, military psychiatry, collaborative care, ensuring your knowledge is thoroughly up to date. Expert Consult eBook version included with purchase. This enhanced eBook experience allows you to search all of the text, figures, and references from the book on a variety of devices.

The American Psychiatric Association Publishing Textbook of Psychiatry, first published more than 30 years ago, is a landmark text with a legacy of sound scholarship, expert knowledge, and effective pedagogy. Thoroughly revised and featuring new authors and content, the seventh edition raises the bar, adding age-related, cultural, societal, and population considerations in the practice of psychiatry to the authoritative text that generations of students, residents, and clinicians have heretofore relied upon. The book first focuses on foundational knowledge, with chapters on psychiatric interviewing, diagnostic formulation, developmental assessment, laboratory testing and neuroimaging, and ethical and legal aspects of clinical psychiatry, and then proceeds to a full presentation of psychiatric disorders in alignment with DSM-5. The third section offers an overview of treatment strategies and methods in present-day psychiatry, a combination of evidence-based biological interventions and psychotherapies, and gives a clear sense of exciting new directions in psychiatric therapeutics. The final section of the textbook is focused on the care of special patient populations, including women; children and adolescents; lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender individuals; older adults; and culturally diverse individuals. Many topics are new to this volume, including the following: Suicide risk assessment, a critically important subject, is addressed in a new chapter that provides the reader with up-to-date knowledge needed to conduct a thorough, attuned, and accurate psychiatric interview in line with best practices. A new chapter on the social determinants of mental health has been added, reflecting an increased emphasis on populations whose specific concerns have been historically underappreciated in American psychiatry, and illuminating factors that influence mental health needs and barriers to care in specific patient populations. Precision psychiatry, an integrative approach that pulls together the scientific foundation of the discipline and recent technological advances and directs them toward closing the gap between discovery and clinical translation, is explored in a new chapter. E-health strategies in mental health have become increasingly available to psychiatrists and other health professionals, especially in the mobile and monitoring spheres. A new chapter offers insights into these intriguing new options for delivering treatment. A chapter on complementary and integrative therapies explores the integration of conventional medicine with alternative treatments for which there is an evidence base, providing an overview of nutrients, phytomedicines, hormones, mind--body practices, and electromagnetic treatments. With features such as key clinical points and recommended readings for further study, The American Psychiatric Association Publishing Textbook of Psychiatry is a comprehensive course book, an indispensable reference, and the ultimate resource for clinical care.

This ground-breaking volume provides readers with both an overview of harm reduction therapy and a series of ten case studies, treated by different therapists, that vividly illustrate this treatment approach with a wide variety of clients. Harm reduction is a framework for helping drug and alcohol users who cannot or will not stop completely—the majority of users—reduce the harmful consequences of use. Harm reduction accepts that abstinence may be the best outcome for many but relaxes the emphasis on abstinence as the only acceptable goal and criterion of success. Instead, smaller incremental changes in the direction of reduced harmfulness of drug use are accepted. This book will show how these simple changes in emphasis and expectation have dramatic implications for improving the effectiveness of psychotherapy in many ways. From the Foreword by Alan Marlatt, Ph.D.: “This ground-breaking volume provides readers with both an overview of harm reduction therapy and a series of ten case studies, treated by different therapists, that vividly illustrate this treatment approach with a wide variety of clients. In his introduction, Andrew Tatarsky describes harm reduction as a new paradigm for treating drug and alcohol problems. Some would say that harm reduction embraces a paradigm shift in addiction treatment, as it has moved the field beyond the traditional abstinence-only focus typically associated with the disease model and the ideology of the twelve-step approach. Others may conclude that the move toward harm reduction represents an integration of what Dr. Tatarsky describes as the “basic principles of good clinical practice” into the treatment of addictive behaviors. “Changing addiction behavior is often a complex and complicated process for both client and therapist. What seems to work best is the development of a strong therapeutic alliance, the right fit between the client and treatment provider. The role of the harm reduction therapist is closer to that of a guide, someone who can provide support an